“I dumped them hundreds of miles apart,” Rifkin calmly told the Daily News Wednesday in a 70-minute interview at the upstate prison where he is serving life in prison.
Rifkin killed 17 prostitutes in a four-year time period – and took pains to dispose of their bodies.

He dumped his victims in rivers and woodland areas from the east end of Long Island to upstate. Three have never been found.
In Oak Beach, four decomposing bodies were found within a quarter-mile area just off a remote highway – and cops believe it’s a sole killer’s job.

Rifkin suggested the killer was haphazard for selecting a single dumping ground because it informed cops to the likelihood of a serial killer and brought more focus to the case.
Rifkin, who once lived in East Meadow, L.I., said he was always more frightened about dumping his bodies than strangling or dismembering his victims.

“I was surprised I didn’t get caught sooner,” said Rifkin, who was arrested in 1993 with his last victim’s body in the back of his mother’s pickup truck.
He said his arrest was the result of “a 25-cent mistake” – a missing license plate.

Rifkin who is 51 now said cops looking for the Oak Beach killer should probably focus on white men, aged 18 to 45, but admitted the magnitude of that challenge.
“That’s like half the country,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice has warned the Los Angeles Police Department that its investigations into racial profiling by officers are inadequate and that some cops still tolerate the practice.

As evidence of the ongoing problem, Justice officials pointed to two LAPD officers who were unknowingly recorded during a conversation with a supervisor being dismissive of racial profiling complaints.

“So, what?” one said, when told that other officers had been accused of stopping a motorist because of his race. The second officer is heard twice saying that he “couldn’t do [his] job without racially profiling.”

The officers’ comments, Justice officials found, spoke to a “perception and attitude of some LAPD officers on the street” and suggested “a culture that is inimical to race-neutral policing.”

The Justice Department’s concerns, which were conveyed in a recent letter obtained by The Times, are a setback for the LAPD, which remains under federal oversight on the issue. In order to rid itself of the federal scrutiny — which police officials have increasingly come to resent — the LAPD must assuage the Justice Department’s concerns.

The harsh assessment has also fed into internal tensions as members of the Police Commission, the civilian panel that oversees the LAPD, grow impatient with the pace of department efforts to more aggressively address the politically and socially explosive issue that has long dogged the city’s police.

Police Chief Charlie Beck disputed the Justice Department findings, saying they were based on cases that predated strict investigative guidelines put into place last year. He also rejected the suggestion that the candid comments of the two officers caught on the recording reflected a pervasive problem.

“It is a huge leap to paint the entire department with that brush,” Beck said. “And it is just not true. It’s not that type of department. We have a tough history that we must overcome and that takes time, but … the vast, vast majority of Los Angeles police officers today police in the right ways for the right reasons.”

Nonetheless, accusations of racial profiling — “biased policing” in modern LAPD lingo — have continued to hamper the department as it has worked to leave behind a reputation for racism and excessive force.

Profiling complaints typically occur after a traffic or pedestrian stop, when the officer is accused of targeting a person solely because of his or her race, ethnicity, religious garb or some other form of outward appearance. About 250 such cases arise each year, but more damaging is the widely held belief, especially among black and Latino men, that the practice is commonplace.

In the letter to city and police officials, the Justice Department expressed “continuing concerns about the overall quality of … investigations of biased policing.” Federal officials criticized investigators for “going through the motions” and found they “simply take ordered statements from officers and then run down a checklist of required questions without following up on key points or asking fundamental questions one would expect.”

In one case the Justice Department reviewed, patrol officers passed a Latino man driving in the opposite direction and did a U-turn to pull him over for a broken brake light. After asking the driver if he was in a gang and checking to see if he had any outstanding warrants, the officers let him go with a warning.

“The investigating officer never asked the officers involved what prompted them to look behind them to actually observe a non-working brake light,” the Justice officials wrote. “The investigator accepted the officers’ single-word answers of ‘No’ to the question whether race was a factor in the stop.”

“They are criticizing us for the way we used to do things,” Beck said in an interview.

He said significant progress has been made, not only in the investigations but also with regard to officers’ attitudes. Still, he said he was concerned about the tape-recorded comments of the two officers, adding that a misconduct investigation has been opened. In that case, the officers were taped by a supervisor who neglected to turn off a recording device after interviewing two other officers accused of racial profiling.

The Justice Department did not respond to calls for comment.

Until last year, the LAPD was under a federal consent decree that the Justice Department imposed in 2001 after the Rampart corruption scandal. It required the Police Department to complete sweeping reforms on many issues and to submit to near-constant audits and monitoring.

The U.S. District Court judge who lifted the decree found that the department had completed most, but not all, of the required reforms. On racial profiling, the judge called on federal authorities to remain in an oversight role for a time to assess the quality of the LAPD’s investigations and the Police Commission’s ability to monitor the issue.

Justice officials sounded an alarm after a report in May from the inspector general, the commission’s watchdog, concluded that the LAPD generally was doing an adequate job. Justice officials criticized the inspector general’s office for “not asking more substantive and probing questions.”

In an effort to satisfy the Justice Department, Nicole Bershon, who took over as inspector general in May, is expected to release a detailed report at the end of the month that reviews 10 recent racial profiling investigations. The cases were handled by a special team of investigators the LAPD formed this year to look at complaints accusing police of searching or detaining a person because of race or ethnicity.

Police commissioners have grown frustrated with the department’s work on racial profiling. At a meeting earlier this month, the commission’s president, John Mack, and Commissioner Rob Saltzman questioned whether police officials were doing enough. They noted that no officer has been found guilty of racial profiling by an LAPD investigation for years, despite numerous complaints each year.

Police leaders have long argued that because racial profiling hinges on what an officer was thinking in the moment, it is all but impossible to determine if he or she racially profiled someone unless there is a confession. When the commanding officer of the Internal Affairs Division offered that explanation to the commission, Mack dismissed it.

“I’ve heard many times that we can’t get inside an officer’s head, but somehow, some way, we need to figure out a way to get to the facts,” Mack said. “I’m not talking about a witch hunt, but I am talking about reaching a point where we can say with confidence that these claims have been very fairly and very thoroughly investigated.”

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Justice Department warns LAPD to take a stronger stance against racial profiling

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed publicly with President Obama on Tuesday over Israeli construction in disputed East Jerusalem, throwing a teetering Mideast peace effort deeper in doubt.

Responding to criticism from Obama, Netanyahu struck a defiant tone in commenting on plans to build 1,300 more Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem, saying his government had never agreed to limit construction in the city.

“Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is the capital of the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “Israel sees no connection between the diplomatic process and the planning and building policy in Jerusalem.”

Netanyahu’s statement came hours after Obama warned that the new construction, announced by Israel on Monday, could harm a renewed Mideast peace effort began in early September. Obama made the remarks a few hours after arriving in Indonesia, his boyhood home for four years, where he was set to deliver the second major speech Wednesday in his outreach to the Muslim world.

“This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations, and I’m concerned that we’re not seeing each side make that extra effort involved to get a breakthrough,” Obama said. “Each of these incremental steps end up breaking trust.”

Israel also is moving ahead with 800 units in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, Israeli news reports said Tuesday.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Israel’s latest expansions are part of “a premeditated process to kill the possibility of an independent Palestinian state.” He said that if the Obama administration is unable to get peace talks back on track in the coming weeks, it should recognize an independent Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem, but the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem, which was captured in the 1967 Middle East War, as the capital of their future state. The international community does not recognize Israel’s annexation of the city’s eastern sector, and a succession of American administrations have urged Israel not to build there.

Netanyahu’s pronouncement was consistent with Israeli policy, yet his sharp tone may embarrass Obama at a moment of vulnerability. Obama is visiting the world’s largest Muslim country, and the rebuke may again raise questions in the Muslim world about how much influence the American leader really has on a priority issue.

The disagreement also comes a week after Obama suffered a setback in the midterm elections, which gave Republicans, who are likely to be sympathetic to Netanyahu’s point of view, majority control of the House of Representatives. Some Israeli officials and U.S. analysts had predicted before the election that Netanyahu might feel emboldened to push back on Obama if the Democrats fared poorly.

Obama launched a new peace effort Sept. 1, but it has been nearly stalled as the Palestinians refuse to negotiate unless Israel halts construction in the disputed areas. Palestinian leaders contend that the Jewish settlers are taking land whose ownership should be decided in negotiations.

Robert Danin, a former U.S. official and specialist on Arab-Israeli issues, said it may have been politically risky for Netanyahu to oppose the new construction project, since Israelis view such building as fully within their rights.

With Netanyahu planning to meet Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington on Thursday, the strong words will not help the U.S. efforts to bring the two sides back to the peace table, said Danin, who is with the Council on Foreign Relations.

“For there to be a deal, the temperature has to come down,” he said.

Israel’s go-ahead to build 1,300 homes in East Jerusalem met with a storm of disapproval from around the world, including all four members of the diplomatic “quartet” that seeks to promote the Mideast peace talks: the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Russia views the announcement “with most serious concern.… We find it essential that the Israeli party refrain from the declared construction.”

Obama’s relationship with Netanyahu has gone through alternating periods of warm and cool. Obama was furious with Netanyahu in March, when new construction was announced in East Jerusalem just as Vice President Joe Biden was visiting. In July, Obama warmly welcomed Netanyahu to the White House.

Yet Obama has maintained pressure on the Israeli prime minister like few recent presidents. In September, he called on Netanyahu from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly to halt settlement construction in the name of peace, a plea Netanyahu has so far resisted.

cparsons@latimes.com

paul.richter@latimes.com

Parsons reported from Jakarta and Richter from Washington. Times staff writer Edmund Sanders in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Netanyahu defiantly answers Obama’s warning over construction in East Jerusalem

“It just illustrated something that has been troubling many of us for many, many years,” California Chief Justice Ronald M. George said. “The election of judges is not necessarily the best way to select them.”

The three Iowa high court justices were ousted in the kind of retention election California uses for appeals court judges: They face no opposing candidates and list no party affiliation, and voters can select “yes” or “no.” Legal scholars have generally said that system is among the most effective ways of avoiding a politicized judiciary.

But a report by the Brennan Center for Justice this year found a “transformation” in state judicial elections during the last decade throughout the country. Big money and a campaign emphasis on how a judge votes on the bench has become “the new normal,” the report said.

“For more than a decade, partisans and special interests of all stripes have been growing more organized in their efforts to use elections to tilt the scales of justice their way,” said the report, which examined 10 years of judicial elections. “Many Americans have come to fear that justice is for sale.”

Although Iowa’s vote will have no immediate effect on marriage rights there, it sends a signal to other judges that voters are watching.

“It will pressure judges, or some judges anyway, perhaps even subconsciously, in their decision-making by what would be popular or what might meet the political preferences of the moment,” George said. “And the judge’s loyalty has to be first and foremost to the rule of law, and not to the political or social or economic pressures or personal preferences.”

Several jurists cited recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that they believe will further politicize the bench. One ruling permitted judges to take political positions during judicial races, and another overturned campaign contribution limits.

Anti-abortion forces targeted George and California Supreme Court Justice Ming W. Chin for removal in 1998 after they voted to overturn a state parental consent law. Both raised money and mounted campaigns to save their seats.

More dramatically, voters ousted the late California Chief Justice Rose Bird and two colleagues in 1986 after a campaign that charged the court was failing to uphold death sentences.

“The Rose Bird situation is now being replicated throughout the United States,” said Justice J. Anthony Kline of the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. What happened in Iowa is likely to happen in other states, including California, where the Bird election generally has been seen as an aberration, he said.

“The independence of California courts has never been seriously challenged, ” Kline said. “But those days may be numbered.”

Most states elect judges, whereas federal judges receive lifetime tenure. Judges for Superior Court in California can be challenged.

A group opposed to gay marriage targeted the Iowa justices, who were on the ballot for their regular retention election, after last year’s unanimous Iowa Supreme Court decision to lift a ban on same-sex marriage. Even though a new governor will now appoint their replacements, the recall is not expected to affect same-sex marriage rights in Iowa.

“It was an attempt to intimidate judges,” said Dean Allan W. Vestal of Drake University Law School in Des Moines. “It had no immediate practical effect.”

The justices who were ejected from the bench blamed “an unprecedented attack by out-of-state special interest groups.” They included the Mississippi-based American Family Assn., the Washington-based Family Research Council and the New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage.

Liberty Counsel, one of the groups that has been fighting gay marriage, praised the results.

“The justices crossed the line when they played the role of a legislator and abandoned judicial restraint,” said Mathew Staver, founder of the group.

George said pressure has come from both the left and the right in California judicial retention elections.

Rejection of Iowa judges over gay marriage raises fears of political influence

A terrorist attack apparently aimed at two Jewish centers in Chicago was thwarted when two packages the size of bread boxes containing explosives were intercepted in Europe and the Middle East, President Obama and counterterrorism officials announced Friday.

The packages, which had originated from Yemen, were found on cargo planes after a tip from an official in Saudi Arabia. The targets were a synagogue and another Jewish center on the North Side of Chicago, a U.S. official said.

As they launched a terrorism investigation on three continents, authorities said suspicion fell in particular on Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, which has been linked to the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day. The explosive material found in the two packages is the same as that used in the failed airliner attack, according to a U.S. official.

Authorities discovered the packages late Thursday in UPS cargo planes that had flown from Yemen to an airport in East Midlands, England; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

An initial examination of the packages found that “they do apparently contain explosive materials,” Obama said in an announcement from the White House on Friday afternoon. Officials said it was still uncertain whether the devices were operational or whether they were to be picked up and activated by someone in Chicago. One official said federal law enforcement authorities believe the latter scenario to be the most likely.

The events “underscore the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism,” the president said. He warned that authorities believe Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based group, “continues to plan attacks against our homeland, our citizens and our friends and allies.”

A federal law enforcement official said the cargo packages resembled the kind of smaller but deadly attacks recently urged by Anwar Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric thought to be living in Yemen. Awlaki sent e-mail to U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan encouraging him to militant activity before the November attacks at Ft. Hood, Texas, in which Hasan is suspected of killing 13 fellow soldiers. The cleric is also suspected of being behind the Christmas Day airliner plot allegedly carried out by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

“He is pushing the less sensational,” the official said, asking not to be identified because the investigation is continuing. “There appears to be a good amount of debate within Al Qaeda, and Al Awlaki is pushing for more hits, but on a smaller scale. He also believes that even when attacks are scrubbed or foiled, they nonetheless are successful if it terrorizes the United States.”

Federal authorities searched cargo planes at airports along the Eastern seaboard on Friday as well as a delivery truck in Brooklyn, N.Y., but found no explosives.

An Emirates Airline passenger jet carrying cargo from Yemen was escorted from the Canadian border to New York City by two military jets, in what U.S. officials described as a precautionary measure. A package aboard the passenger plane appeared similar to those found in England and Dubai, officials said, but was found not be contain explosives.

John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, said the explosives “were in a form that was designed to try to carry out some type of attack.”

A federal law enforcement official said initial reviews of the two suspicious cargo packages showed that the one found in England apparently contained a printer or ink toner cartridge with “some kind of white powder” and syringes and wires. He said the package uncovered in Dubai apparently contained cellphone components and a timer. He cautioned that both were still being evaluated and that no firm conclusions had been made.

Obama said that Brennan had spoken with the president of Yemen, who had pledged full cooperation in the investigation.

According to officials, the White House called a 1 a.m. meeting Friday to evaluate the cargo package intelligence, which included video participation with Homeland Security officials. They said the White House decided it was “good enough intelligence” to alert allies in Europe to start checking cargo packages coming from Yemen and bound for the U.S.

At 3 a.m., they said, the U.S. ordered every package from Yemen headed for the U.S. to be pulled off planes and inspected.

Homeland Security officials took a series of steps to enhance security, including heightened cargo screening and additional safety measures at U.S. airports. “Passengers should continue to expect an unpredictable mix of security layers that include explosives trace detection, advanced imaging technology, canine teams and pat downs, among others,” Homeland Security officials said.

A Jewish Federation of Greater Chicago spokeswoman said the group was “taking appropriate precautions” and was “advising our local synagogues to do likewise.” One of the targets was a Jewish congregation that meets at a Unitarian church, according to a U.S. official.

Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism in Washington, said Rahm Emanuel has been the focus of some attention on extremist blogs since long before he resigned as White House chief of staff to run for Chicago mayor. Segal said that vitriol on message boards peaked when Obama named Emanuel his top aide in early 2009.

The two incidents highlight a known vulnerability in the air cargo industry, one that has been the subject of extensive discussion between the Transportation Security Administration and the industry for several years.

The federal government has mandated in recent years that all cargo on passenger aircraft be screened, a goal that was achieved only this August. But the issue of parcels aboard cargo-only aircraft has been far more difficult to resolve. As far back as March 2009, the industry warned Congress it would not be able to meet the August deadline that 100% of cargo would be screened.

A TSA official acknowledged Friday that not all cargo inbound from abroad is screened and that the cargo that does get screened is handled differently than passenger luggage, which is subject to X-ray. That means that the two suspicious packages may not have been subject to screening when they were originally loaded in Yemen.

paul.richter@latimes.com

richard.serrano@latimes.com

bbennett@tribune.com

Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau and Times staff writer Ralph Vartabedian in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Explosives found in two U.S.-bound packages, thwarting terrorist attack

Suicide attackers burst into the main United Nations compound in the western city of Herat on Saturday, setting off a battle with Afghan police and troops. All four assailants were reported killed, but the U.N. said there were no casualties among its staff.

The incident roiled the aid community in Afghanistan at a time when a number of international humanitarian and development groups are considering curtailing or halting projects in response to an upcoming ban by President Hamid Karzai on the use of private security guards. Western diplomats are pressing the Afghan leader to ease the restrictions, which are to take effect at the end of the year.

The attack in Herat, the biggest city in western Afghanistan, began with a detonation at one of the complex’s entry gates, according to provincial officials, and three assailants then managed to push their way inside. One or more of them wore a burqa, or a body-length veil, said Naqib Armin, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

The compound, on the city’s edge near the airport, houses several U.N. agencies which employ both foreign and Afghan staff. There would have been about 40 people inside at the time, said U.N. spokesman Dan McNorton.

One of the attackers was killed at the outset of the strike when he set off explosives inside a car, provincial authorities said. Two others apparently detonated their suicide vests, and the last was shot dead by police.

Herat province is considered a relatively calm part of the country — so much so that it is being considered as one of the first places where the NATO force will attempt to hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces.

With Western military officials claiming major success in driving the Taliban from strongholds in Kandahar province, however, the insurgency has been making a push into parts of the country that were previously considered relatively safe, such as the north.

Attacks inside Kandahar have diminished since the Western military offensive began in earnest about a month ago, but insurgents are still able to move about despite the security cordon around the city. A motorcycle-borne suicide bomber at a main traffic circle in the city killed one passer-by and injured two others on Saturday, provincial authorities said.

Outside Kandahar city, veteran New York Times photographer Joao Silva was seriously injured Saturday when he stepped on a buried bomb, the newspaper reported on its website. Although NATO officials say Taliban fighters have been mainly driven out of the district, Arghandab, the insurgents have seeded the area with IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, which are the principal killer of Western troops.

Most of the 30,000 American troops who arrived this year under President Obama’s “surge” are deployed in the south, mainly in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

NATO troops were not involved in responding to the attack in Herat, said Lt. Col. Regina Winchester, a spokeswoman for the International Security Assistance Force. However, witnesses said Western forces were seen helping cordon off the scene, and a NATO helicopter circled overhead. NATO troops in the west of Afghanistan are under Italian command.

McNorton, the U.N. spokesman, said it was “too early to speculate” about steps the world body might take in response to the attack on its compound. The U.N. sent hundreds of foreign staffers out of the country after a Taliban attack last October on a U.N. guesthouse in the capital, in which five of its foreign staff were killed.

This year has been a perilous one for foreign aid workers in Afghanistan. In August, insurgent gunmen killed a 10-member medical team, including six Americans, in Badakhshan province, in the north. Earlier this month, a Scottish development worker was killed during an attempt by American troops to rescue her after she was abducted by the Taliban.

laura.king@latimes.com
Suicide attackers hit U.N. compound in Afghanistan

The Justice Department on Wednesday asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to quickly set aside a judge’s order that bars enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, saying the judge’s “extraordinary decision” went too far, too fast.

The 25-page motion says the appeals court should lift the judge’s order Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips in Southern California, acting on a suit brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, declared the “don’t ask” policy unconstitutional last month. On Oct. 12, she then ordered the Pentagon to stopping enforcing the policy, which it did.

The Justice Department said it has a duty to defend the laws enacted by Congress, even though President Obama is urging Congress to repeal the law and to allow openly gay men and women to serve in the military.

The government said the “sweeping injunction against a duly enacted Act of Congress” was wrong as a matter of law. It is “at odds with basic principles of judicial restraint requiring courts to limit injunctive relief to the parties before the court, and is contrary to decisions of other courts, which have sustained the constitutionality of the statute.”

Moreover, the judge’s order suspending enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask” policy has caused “confusion and uncertainty” at the Pentagon and among gays and lesbians in the ranks, the government said.

If an appeals court reverses the judge and affirms the constitutionality of the law, it “would create tremendous uncertainty about the status of service members who may reveal their sexual orientation in reliance” on the judge’s order suspending the law, the government said.

For all these reasons, it said a three-judge panel should issue an emergency order lifting the injunction.

If the 9th Circuit refuses to lift the judge’s order, the government could then seek an emergency stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.

david.savage@latimes.com
Justice Department asks appeals court to overturn ‘don’t ask’ injunction

The Supreme Court intervened again Monday in a lawsuit against a former George W. Bush administration official, agreeing to decide whether former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is entirely shielded from claims that he misused the law to arrest terrorism suspects under false pretenses.

Obama administration lawyers appealed on Ashcroft’s behalf and asserted that it would “severely damage law enforcement” if the nation’s top law enforcement official could be held liable for abusing his authority.

In the last five years, civil libertarians have tried, without much success, to sue former Bush administration officials for overstepping the law. These suits have run into a series of procedural barriers. For example, those who accused the government of wiretapping their phones without a search warrant had their cases thrown out of court on grounds they could not prove they had been wiretapped. Others who said they were wrongly arrested and tortured had their claims dismissed when the government invoked the “state secrets” privilege.

Last year, the Supreme Court shielded Ashcroft from being sued by Muslim immigrants in the New York area who said they were arrested and abused in jail after the 9/11 attacks, even though they had no involvement in a terrorism plot. In a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled that the suit against Ashcroft must be dismissed because the plaintiffs could not prove he ordered them to be abused.

The new case arose when Lavoni Kidd, a former football star at the University of Idaho, was arrested and shackled at Washington’s Dulles International Airport in March 2003. He was not taken into custody because he was suspected of a crime, but because he was a supposed “material witness” in another case.

Federal law permits the government in special situations to hold someone as a “material witness” in a pending case. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union accused Ashcroft of a “gross abuse” of this authority. They say he misused the law to arrest innocent people, even when the government lacked the required “probable cause.”

After the 9/11 attacks Ashcroft announced he would use all the legal authority at his disposal to capture terrorists. Hundreds of Muslim men were arrested and held on immigration charges. That option was not available in Kidd’s case because he is a U.S. citizen.

He had converted to Islam in college and changed him name to Abdullah Al-Kidd. He had cooperated with the FBI after the 9/11 attacks and answered questions about another Muslim man in Idaho who was under investigation in connection with his website.

Several months had elapsed since Kidd had heard from the FBI, but when he bought a round-trip ticket to travel to Saudi Arabia, where he had a study scholarship, the FBI moved to have him arrested. An FBI agent wrongly told a magistrate that Kidd had bought a one-way first-class ticket. The magistrate ordered Kidd arrested and held as a witness. A few days later, then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III testified in Congress and mentioned Kidd’s “arrest” as one of the bureau’s recent successes.

Kidd was strip-searched repeatedly and shackled for more than two weeks in a high-security cell where the lights were kept on, according to his complaint. He was then released, but his passport was taken. In 2005, Kidd sued Ashcroft and other officials, contending they had violated his constitutional rights by arresting him without probable cause.

Ashcroft moved to dismiss the suit, arguing that as the nation’s chief prosecutor, he was absolutely immune from such claims. But a federal judge in Idaho and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to dismiss the suit. Judge Milan Smith said it was “repugnant to the Constitution” for the government to say it “has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wants to investigate them for possible wrongdoing.”

This ruling, if allowed to stand, would have allowed the case against Ashcroft to proceed toward a trial.

But Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal appealed to the high court and argued that top prosecutors should be shielded from answering such allegations. “Absolute immunity applies regardless of the prosecutor’s intent,” he said.

The justices announced they will hear the case of Ashcroft vs. Al-Kidd early next year and decide whether the doctrine of prosecutorial immunity requires that the suit be dismissed. New Justice Elena Kagan said she would stay out of the case.

david.savage@latimes.com

Supreme Court to hear civil liberties suit against John Ashcroft

Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman go round and round: quibbling over the slur someone in Brown’s camp used to describe Whitman and how offensive it was (or wasn’t) and whether Brown should (or shouldn’t) be more contrite. This drives Kim DuPont crazy.

DuPont, a political independent and Whitman supporter, said after Brown apologized in their last debate, “She should have just accepted, and they both should have gotten on with it.”

DuPont ticks off her concerns: jobs, the economy, making Sacramento more business-friendly. “Those are the issues affecting the state and our place in the world,” said DuPont, 50, a financial consultant in the agriculture industry. “Those are what matter.”

The race for governor has been long, contentious and, by far, the most expensive in history. To many in this rural stretch of Central California, it has also been a disappointment: feeding their cynicism, taxing their patience — they long ago tuned out the incessant advertising — and instilling little faith that either candidate can deal with the state’s paralyzing dysfunction.

The last several weeks of the campaign, dominated by debate over an inadvertently recorded epithet and Whitman’s illegal immigrant housekeeper, have seemed especially pointless.

“A sideshow,” said Margo Michael, a cook. “Silly,” said Jerry Caperton, a retired firefighter.

For the last 16 years, San Benito County has been California’s political bellwether, a slice of rich farmland just south of the San Francisco Bay Area with an unparalleled record of matching statewide voter sentiment. In 2002, Gray Davis won reelection with 47% of the vote; in San Benito County he received 49%. In 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cruised to victory with 57% support. In San Benito County, he got 56%.

If the pattern holds this November, and if San Benito again speaks for the rest of the state, then neither candidate will run away with the contest.

Democrat Brown and Republican Whitman have their partisans: people who believe political experience (in Brown’s case) or business acumen (cited by Whitman backers) would be just what’s needed to shake up Sacramento (the way politicians always pledge).

But many more voters echoed Chuck Obeso-Bradley, who was not particularly enamored of either candidate and regarded their promises, and their charges and countercharges, with a good dose of skepticism.

A Democrat, he leans toward Brown (“holding my nose a bit”). But he thinks it will be some time before the state cycles from recession to recovery, regardless of the outcome Nov. 2. “I’ll support whoever wins and wish them both Godspeed,” said Obeso-Bradley, 56, the sales manager for a software company. “They’re going to need it.”

With about 55,000 residents, roughly the population of Arcadia or Cerritos, San Benito is more rural and Latino than California as a whole. There are relatively fewer college graduates and a slightly higher proportion of registered Democrats.

But the economic hardship — the bankruptcies, jobs lost, homes foreclosed, businesses hanging by the merest of threads — are familiar to many Californians battered by the Great Recession.

In some ways, San Benito County had it worse. Even before the housing bubble burst, regulators imposed a local building moratorium until a new sewage plant was built. The work was finished just in time for the recession, which devastated the construction industry. Unemployment, always subject to the vagaries of the agricultural season, peaked near 22% in February.

There have been hopeful signs of late. Unemployment was 14.8% in August (compared to 12.4% statewide.) A long-awaited expansion of the Hollister airport may finally go forward, and the county could land a new solar farm, with the promise of as many as 650 jobs.

Still, not one person in more than 40 interviewed felt good about the direction things were headed, a contrast with 2006, when business was robust and state lawmakers passed a budget the day before the July 1 start of the fiscal year — with a surplus.

“Sacramento keeps rolling on, like it always has, but things are out of control,” said William McDonald, 39, a courier for the San Benito County Health Department and an undecided independent. “It’s October, and they’re just now barely passing a budget?”

Even though Schwarzenegger is not on the ballot, the governor loomed large in the minds of many. That has not helped Whitman. She is running on the same outsider message Schwarzenegger used in the 2003 recall election, and several voters suggested his years in office didn’t work out too well.

“He was new. He was fresh. I thought, give it a shot,” said Bob Rowlands, 59, a Democrat who sells evidence-tracking software to police agencies. “Now Whitman is talking about running Sacramento like a business, but running a business and running the government aren’t the same. Brown may not have all the answers, but at least he knows the lay of the land.”

Whitman has spent more than $140 million on the campaign — the vast majority from her own pocketbook — and that alone has put some people off, including Peggy Neubauer, a Republican who may vote Democratic for the first time in her life.

“It’s all about feeding her ego: ‘I’m going to be the governor of the biggest state in the union,’ ” said Neubauer, 55, who owns a struggling real estate and property management firm. “Well, you can’t buy it. And if she gets there, she’s going to have all the problems Arnold had, without his finesse.”

The controversy over Whitman’s illegal immigrant housekeeper — the candidate said she did not know her status until just before the woman was fired — apparently swayed few people. Mary Martinez, 67, a retired bookkeeper and political independent, was ready to back Whitman but will skip voting in the governor’s race. “I don’t like the way she was treated,” said Martinez, referring to the maid’s brusque dismissal after nine years of employment.

But most of those interviewed waved off the matter as a diversion cooked up by Democrats. That included many Brown supporters, like Lauretta Avina, 46, who suggested that candidates “do what it takes to get elected. They play dirty on both sides.”

While Schwarzenegger shadows Whitman’s campaign, Brown has to contend with the record of another California governor: himself.

“I remember him saying they weren’t going to spray for the Medfly, and then all those planes came overhead spraying all over the place,” said Jan Van Erven, referring to Brown’s equivocating stance during the 1980s agricultural infestation. Van Erven also remembered Rose Bird, the state Supreme Court justice who overturned 64 death penalty convictions and became a soft-on-crime symbol to Brown critics.

“Brown had his shot,” said Van Erven, 62, a Republican-leaning independent. “I think Whitman could do a better job dealing with the Legislature, which is nothing but a bunch of hard-core liberal Democrats.”

Unless asked, no one talked about the latest campaign flap involving someone close to Brown using the word “whore” to describe Whitman for allegedly cutting a deal to win an endorsement. The private conversation was picked up on voicemail, after Brown thought he had hung up the phone.

Caperton, 70, the retired firefighter, was typical of the overwhelming majority who rolled their eyes or simply shrugged off the remark. “You have to wonder what she calls him back in her office when no one’s listening,” he said, laughing. Unhappy with the choices, he may not vote for anyone for governor.

mark.barabak@latimes.com
State’s bellwether voters want more attention paid to issues

U.S. and British officials are investigating whether a British aid worker kidnapped by Taliban militants in Afghanistan may have been inadvertently killed by American troops as they attempted to rescue her last week.

British officials initially announced that Linda Norgrove, 36, had been killed by her Islamist captors Friday during a rescue attempt carried out by U.S. special forces. Norgrove was kidnapped along with three Afghan colleagues two weeks ago in eastern Kunar province while visiting a development project there. Militants had earlier freed Norgrove’s Afghan co-workers.

On Monday, the U.S. military said in a prepared statement that a review of surveillance footage and interviews with members of the rescue team “do not conclusively determine the cause of her death.” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, ordered an investigation into Norgrove’s death, the statement said.

In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron said at a news conference that Petraeus had told him Norgrove may have been killed by a grenade thrown by a member of the U.S. rescue team. Cameron said his foreign secretary, William Hague, had given the go-ahead to launch the rescue effort after deciding that Norgrove was at grave risk. Cameron said Hague’s decision had his support.

“We were clear that Linda’s life was in grave danger and the operation offered the best chance of saving her life,” Cameron told reporters. “I will obviously go over in my mind 100 times whether it was the right decision, but I profoundly believe it was.”

A former United Nations worker, Norgrove was working on a $150-million project for the U.S. aid group Development Alternatives Inc., aimed at strengthening local economies in Afghanistan.

The decision to forge ahead with a rescue mission was made after North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies received a tip about Norgrove’s whereabouts. Six militants holding Norgrove were also killed in the rescue bid.

alex.rodriguez@latimes.com

U.S. troops may have killed kidnapped British aid worker during failed rescue attempt